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This shouldn't comes as a surprise. When it comes to aquaculture, both the Harper Conservatives and the Chretien/ Martin Liberals have thrown the "precautionary principle" out the window. That principle stems from the UN's Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It states: "In decision making, the precautionary principle is considered when possibly dangerous, irreversible, or catastrophic events are identified, but scientific evaluation of the potential damage is not sufficiently certain."The precautionary principle implies an emphasis on the need to prevent such adverse effects. Canada was a signatory of the summit's final communiqué.

The ISA virus, previously limited to Atlantic salmon - including an outbreak that ravaged Chile's farm-raised salmon industry in 2007 and 2008 - was found in two out of 48 young sockeye salmon sampled from B.C. The findings were announced Monday in Vancouver by Routledge, who said the European strain of the virus they detected had only been identified before in farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

The research suggested that the virus in Canada originated from imports of Atlantic salmon and eggs into the Pacific Northwest, though no direct link has been confirmed.

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Representatives of the aquaculture industry argue that the two cases may be false positives. Daniel Pauly, a fisheries biologist at the University of British Columbia, calls for an immediate comparison of the methods used to detect the disease by the reference lab that found the positives and those of the Canadian fish health department, which says it has so far found no traces of the virus on salmon farms. “Typically, negative results are not as conclusive as positive results,” he said.

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The Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island, which generated the positive results, is the global reference lab for the disease — “the best there is,” according to James Winton, the fish health section chief at the United States Geological Survey Western Fisheries Research Center. “I have to believe that the results are highly credible,” he said.

Assuming the disease is present, the next immediate question is where it came from. Dr. Pauly suggests that the virus’s introduction to British Columbia was an inevitability associated with the aquaculture industry.

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Ray Hilborn, a fisheries biologist at the University of Washington, acknowledged that nearby aquaculture would be the obvious hypothesis. But he noted that many people went fishing in Chile: it is conceivable that a fisherman unknowingly carried the virus from Chile to British Columbia on boots or bait, he said.

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Such efforts take time. Although salmon farms could be surveyed fairly quickly, he guesses that getting a handle on wild populations could take at least a couple years. The lab testing could take around a year and a half depending upon the availability of susceptible fish; juvenile fish are needed from locations that are thought to be free from the virus.

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Washington U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell and two other Northwest Senators introduced a measure last night to mobilize the nation's existing Aquatic Animal Health Task Force, to put testing and planning for the salmon virus as its top priority. The thrust of the action will be to prevent the virus from migrating into U.S. waters.

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When Republican senators from Alaska echo the warnings of peer-reviewed scientists like Alexandra Morton that this finding poses a threat to B.C. salmon, it's time Ottawa took this matter seriously and do more than just study the findings.

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One thing is certain, if farm fish end up being responsible for causing the significant demise of the wild salmon, there will be a lot of unemployed people and hungry animals on the West Coast of North America, and if this gets inot the Russian and other Asian salmon runs, there will be international hell to pay.

At least the USAsian politicians are taking it seriously - In a matter of days, the discovery of a dreaded virus in Pacific salmon has prompted swift action on the state and federal level.

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One thing is certain, if farm fish end up being responsible for causing the significant demise of the wild salmon, there will be a lot of unemployed people and hungry animals on the West Coast of North America, and if this gets inot the Russian and other Asian salmon runs, there will be international hell to pay.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Wouldn't expect too much. Feds can't even take the recommendations of the Great Lakes Gov's seriously in dealing with Asian Carp.

Though, wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater on aquaculture. It can be done and done safely.